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My laptop's CPU fan runs at high speed whenever I play audio, although the CPU usage is very low. I think it might have something to do with my having the high quality libmad or not configuring ALSA correctly. It's annoying hearing the fan screaming when I'm trying to listen to my audio. Thanks

My laptop's CPU fan runs at high speed whenever I play audio, although the CPU usage is very low. I think it might have something to do with my having the high quality libmad or not configuring ALSA correctly. It's annoying hearing the fan screaming when I'm trying to listen to my audio. Thanks

Generally, CPU fans kick off only as a result of a temperature sensor. Some audio cards have fans of their own which operate independently of the CPU's fan and its temperature sensor. Is it possible that it's an audio card fan kicking off?

Generally, CPU fans kick off only as a result of a temperature sensor. Some audio cards have fans of their own which operate independently of the CPU's fan and it's temperature sensor. Is it possible that it's an audio card fan kicking off?

No, my laptop only has one fan, and this issue never seemed to occur until I updated libmad to the high quality libmad.

libmad will increase your CPU usage even if it was low. I would think that either the threshold is being reached or something that was already in the coreboot took effect with the addition of the new library. Doesn't seem likely, but I suppose it's possible.

libmad will increase your CPU usage even if it was low. I would think that either the threshold is being reached or something that was already in the coreboot took effect with the addition of the new library. Doesn't seem likely, but I suppose it's possible.

Does it happen when you play non-compressed audio files (like WAV I suppose) ? If these uncompressed files don't result in fan noise, then I'd bet it's because your CPU is experiencing a slightly higher load to uncompress the files and this results in a load and/or heat increase that is moving the fan into a higher speed. It is possible on some machines to control the speed of the fan relative to certain other parameters, but I'm not familiar with how to do this on a linux machine. On a windows machine I have, there is an AMD utility which lets you specify a graph to map load/heat onto a particular fan speed.

If you choose to keep the fan low or off when the load or heat increases, you should be careful -- you don't want to overheat your system or it may fail.

It's not easy on a laptop, but it may be possible to replace the fan with a quieter one if the fan is of a standard size. I tried tweaking my AMD 6-core desktop fan's settings and nothing helped. Eventually, I bought a new Heat Sink / Fan and that fixed the problem. Stock AMD fans are loud and cheap. A new $50 HSF and now it's completely silent regardless of how much load it has.

I still don't understand why the CPU fan speeds up and my CPU temp increases ~10 °F although my CPU usage remains minimal. I've used htop to look at the threads of, e.g., Amarok, but no one thread is more intensive than another. It's as though whenever a sound-playing program opens the ALSA library, my CPU heats up ~10 °F. Is there a way to find out what libraries are sapping my resources? Thanks

, it is possible that this device makes the fan run, not the CPU itself.

Yes, most likely; something creates ~10 °F more internal heat.

I've tried different Phonon backends, too, but the same problem occurs, so perhaps it is a hardware issue. (The same problem occurs even when using XFCE instead of KDE.) I've also heard that ALSA emulates; is that true?

As I wrote in another thread, my friend has an Intel i5 processor with onboard-graphics and Windows 7, and even this laptop has always the fan running her the kids play games. I suppose that this is due to the graphics adapter which likely porduces more heat than the CPU.

Referring to the output of uname -r your processor has only 1.2 GHz, this will not produce much heat.

As I wrote in another thread, my friend has an Intel i5 processor with onboard-graphics and Windows 7, and even this laptop has always the fan running her the kids play games. I suppose that this is due to the graphics adapter which likely porduces more heat than the CPU.

Yes, when I say "CPU fan" I mean the one and only fan in my laptop that cools everything

Quote:

Originally Posted by markush

Referring to the output of uname -r your processor has only 1.2 GHz, this will not produce much heat.

Yes, it's low power, I think only 18 Watts. I'm just confused why playing audio should heat it up so much; the fan hardly runs except when playing audio (and video).